Random thoughts

If there was affirmative action in golf, nobody would give Tiger Woods half the credit he gets -- and deserves.

Would you prefer to have a "compulsory" health care system imposed on you and your doctor or to have "universal" health care? Or do you realize that they are the same thing in different words?

Name three things coming out of the Middle East today besides oil and terrorism. If you can't do that, try naming one thing.

If I were to get to heaven, I would probably find an exhausted guardian angel who had been getting me out of trouble all these years.

You can fail to achieve any of the things you planned and still live a happy and fulfilled life, because of opportunities that come along that you never planned for. But these opportunities can be missed if you stick doggedly to your preconceived blueprint.

People have a right to their own cultures -- even Americans. Those who come here and say that they cannot follow some of our laws that conflict with their culture are free to leave.

Much of what are called "social problems" consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.

Some of the questions on the California High School Exit Exam are the kinds of questions whose answers you would have been expected to know before you got into high school in past generations.

I don't care whether professional golf is coed or single-sex but I am sick and tired of third party busybodies trying to tell everybody how to run their business or live their lives.

Bob Hope's 100th birthday recalls a comedy skit from some years ago. The setting is in 1776. Someone tells an eagle that someday he will be the symbol of America. The eagle replies: "You mean I'll be Bob Hope?"

It is heartbreaking to watch people -- especially young people -- throw away gold and go for brass.

In baseball, football, and tennis, an official can turn to other officials who may have been in a better position to see something that is disputed. But, in boxing, a foul not seen by the referee is just a foul that one of the fighters gets away with.

Although my wife and I live a modest life, I am amazed at the bills that come in each month -- and I can't help wondering how people who live it up manage to make ends meet.

The political left seems to regard economic policy issues as litmus tests for whether you are a good person, rather than as questions of facts about what works and doesn't work.

Tony Snow of Fox News seems to be the only one in the media who has pointed out what a farce it is for people to be talking about a tax cut in terms of so many billions of dollars. Government can only change the tax rates. How much the tax revenue will change -- and in which direction -- will be known only after the fact.

Thank heaven human beings are born with an ability to laugh at absurdity. Otherwise, we might go stark raving mad from all the absurd things we encounter in life.

It is amazing how many people act as if the right to free speech includes the right to be free of criticism for what you say -- which means that other people should not have the same right to free speech that they claim for themselves.

Do those "citizen of the world" types who think we should open our borders to free immigration leave their front doors open at night when they go to sleep, with a "Welcome Neighbor" neon sign blinking over it? Yet their neighbors are probably more similar to themselves than many people who are immigrating here from around the world.

Insurance companies are in the business of reducing given risks and transferring them, for a price. Non-profit advocacy groups are in the business of maximizing fears from given risks, in order to attract the donations that keep them going. Yet because the latter's income is not called by the dreaded word "profit," they are considered to be doing something more noble.